Page 20 - Lulu and Bob in Verbo City

No sooner had the twins put everything shipshape than they heard
Bunster’s Alfa go noisily up the driveway.
“Uncle needs to get that muffler fixed,” said Bob, grinning. “But
until he does, it’s as good as belling the cow.”
“Shush!” Lulu glared at him. They were seated across from the
desk looking at the old man’s back issues of Dead Language Review
when he came bounding in. He pulled off the moth-eaten letterman’s
jacket he’d gotten on the high school debating team, his usual
outerwear for excursions into the business district of Verbo City.
“Hi, kids! What’s this: just sitting around reading? No energy? I
feel great: It turns out I am afflicted with portmanteau spoonerismus
and mondegreenery as well as logorrheic paronomasia and
metaphrastic pleonasm. So it’s not just my imagination—or is it?
Until they find that supposed cranial organ and subject it to analysis,
I’m stuck with the same old treatment. And luckily polysyllablitis has
been stricken from the list of conditions requiring a syntactectomy. I
tested negative for glossolalia, which is a good thing: English has no
glottal stop, you know.”
19